AppleplanningtotakeonVenmowithpeer-to-peerpaymentservice

Apple is set to challenge the likes of Venmo as it plans to launch its own person-to-person mobile payment service.

According to a new report by The Wall Street Journal, the company is discussing the development of the service with banks in the U.S., including Capital One, J.P. Morgan Chase, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo.

Watch out, Venmo

No definite deals have been hammered out by Apple with the banks, the report says. And the service is not expected to be launched until next year, although Apple has been granted a U.S. patent for a person-to-person payment system this year.

In all likelihood, the service would let users easily send money to one another using only their iPhones, rather than paying each other with cash or checks. Hence, the service would be engaging in competition with the PayPal-owned Venmo and other popular peer-to-peer payment services, including Square Cash, Google Wallet, and Facebook’s, which is built into Messenger.

Level up, Apple Pay

The service is likely to be developed as part of Apple Pay, which was launched by Apple in October last year as a secure mobile wallet solution for paying for purchases in stores and apps. It would then require users to link Apple Pay with their checking accounts, from which peer-to-peer money transfers would be funded.

The launch of a person-to-person payment service would help Apple in attracting more customers to use iPhones and, in particular, Apple Pay, whose adoption is said to be slowing.

Already, Venmo and other third-party solutions offer great convenience to users — and at no charge in most cases at that — when they need to send money to one another in any number of instances for noncommercial purposes, such as splitting dinner checks and sharing rent with roommates. A first-party solution from Apple is likely to be even more convenient.